MOBILE, Alabama -- Deerhoof, a West Coast band playing Wednesday, Nov. 7, at the Alabama Music Box, has a knack for being confounding on its albums. So much so that it’s enough to make you wonder what you might be in for if you come out to a live show.

Not to worry, says drummer Greg Saunier.

It’s true that the band’s output over the years has been diverse and sometimes challenging. Reviewing the group’s 2012 album “Breakup Song,” a Pitchfork reviewer found “a lot of nervy sound going on in these tunes, with chords, rhythms, and electronic blips and whirrs darting around the stereo space.”

Deerhoof is often referred to as a “noise band,” and in a recent interview Saunier agreed that its creative zigs and zags have sometimes been extreme. But once a band leaves the studio and hits the road, certain realities set in.

“We found that the more we had to worry about making it sound exactly like the record, the less fun it was to play,” he said.

Adding new musicians or using backing tracks might have made it possible to sound the same as the records at every show. Instead, the band decided to enjoy exploring how different it could sound every night.

“Live we’re just a guitar band, we’re just a guitar rock band with no tricks and no bells and whistles,” he said. “Even though the songs might sound like they have a lot of variety sonically, on the record, deep down they’re just simple songs that anybody could play.”

“We’ve been playing together so long, and especially once you’re in the middle of a tour, you get really playful,” he said. “You get to where you know each other so well and you know the song so well that you can squeeze it, you can stretch it.”

Speaking of being playful: Saunier still remembers Deerhoof’s first Gulf Coast stop, a Biloxi show at a Jaycees hall years ago. They were just the opening act. They hadn’t even released their first full album yet.

“It was our first U.S. tour … We felt this incredible freedom. We were trying something different every single night,” he said.

“That day on the drive over we had stopped at a truck stop, and Satomi (Matsuzaki), our singer, had never seen this item that was for sale, which was one of these back scratchers that was made out of like an alligator’s hand or something,” he recalled. “She just instantly was like, ‘I’m getting that.’”

The show was held in a simple hall with no stage. “There’s nothing stopping her from walking out into the audience, she was holding this back-scratcher thing, hitting people on the head with it,” he said. “And she was dressed in this orange bear suit that she had made at the beginning of the tour. And people were like, even though she’s quite small, you see this weird orange bear with this wand coming at you … it was really fun.”

Tonight’s show also features some interesting opening acts. Liam Finn, whom Saunier describes as “an incredible talent,” is the son of Neil Finn of Crowded House. And the night will be opened by “this band I’m positive nobody’s heard, called Formica Man, a really obscure punk band from Portland, Oregon.”

Saunier isn’t necessarily promising orange bear suits and voodoo back-scratchers, but let’s just say it looks like there’ll be plenty of freedom to go around.

The venue is at 455 Dauphin St. According to www.alabamamusicbox.net, the 18-and-up show starts at 9 p.m. Advance tickets are $12.